1. Field of the Invention
The present invention pertains to governing computers with radio transmissions, and to configuring data so that it is accessible by any mode of communication including a radio transceiver. The invention pertains in part to restoring communications before and during terrorist threats or acts or in emergencies, and focuses on making heretofore non-interoperable radio systems (such as Police, Fire, Hazmat, etc.) interoperable even under attack or emergency conditions (when such interoperability is most needed).
2. Description of Related Art
In a disaster scene, it is typical to find two types of devices. First, radios are plentiful. Second, computers are available. It has been this inventor's mission to invent new ways of interconnecting radios and computers to provide data transfer, and data management systems, for regional disasters. Traditionally, amateur radio has been a fertile ground for new technology development. Since the 1940s, numerous products including cellphones, developed from amateur radio, have been commercialized. The importance of radio technology in providing communications during emergencies is evident today in such events as the earthquake and tsunami in December of 2004, and the Sep. 11, 2001 attack. As reported in The Wall Street Journal, “With Hurricane Katrina having knocked out nearly all the high-end emergency communications gear, 911 centers, cellphone towers and normal fixed phone lines in its path, Amateur Radio Operators have begun to fill the information vacuum. In an age of high-tech, real-time gadgetry, it's the decidedly unsexy “ham” radio—whose narrow audio bandwidth has changed little since World War II—that is in high demand in ravaged New Orleans and environs.”
Narrow-band battery operated radios work well when others do not because they are simple and readily available in disaster scenes. At this writing, the ability of police, fire and medical rescue and etc. to coordinate their radio communications in a local, regional or national emergency is still an elusive dream. The goal of “interoperability” may be much sought after, but no national, state or local governments have yet solved the problem of actually coordinating police, fire and medical communications when commercial power is unavailable and communications towers and repeaters are inoperative due to damage or overload. This inventor's solutions transmit data quickly and reliably over those radios, leveraging both the ubiquitous legacy equipment and the expansive network of voice-based radio repeaters that are already deployed nationwide.
As a result, in an age when messages are sent and received with relentless fury, the means for simple, effective, reliable and inexpensive communications are still elusive and many times—especially in emergencies when they are most needed—completely unavailable.
The greatest problem facing further development in emergency radio communications is the problem of interoperability. Because different radio systems operate on different frequencies, they are not by nature interoperable. The result is simple and inevitable: radios on different frequencies cannot communicate with each other.
The traditional solution to this particular interoperability problem is a device known as an interoperability bridge. In its simplest terms, an interoperability bridge is a switchboard that either manually or physically connects two or more frequencies together. Although this solution is viable and in some circumstances works well, it has a significant drawback. Once two frequencies, or more than two frequencies, are interconnected through the interoperability bridge, spoken voice communications (known as traffic) on one frequency are automatically placed simultaneously on all other frequencies interconnected by the interoperability bridge. This consumes valuable airtime on all frequencies, making the standard traditional interoperability bridge solution unacceptable in threat situations, emergencies or disasters, when heavy traffic turns into a literal radio traffic jam.